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Read my posts from previous weeks and you will note that I am still a VERY strong believer.
I think I posted a message every day last week .
Q What about technical roadblocks or capacity limitations ? Can you push your voltage under 1V?
A Again, no major technical roadblocks or bottlenecks. We are world class and don’t see capacity or capability roadblocks. Yes we can push our VPI to 0.8 V or 0.5 dry Volt (?), we are below 1V. Indeed important to drive the modulator directly from the electronics and to eliminate the driver.
Jim I was asked the following questions by my fellow shareholders
1)I understand Niocorp management is working or negotiating on a 20Million financing . What will the money be used for? The FS does not cost 20 million does it?
Proceeds from any of multiple financings on which we are working now are slated to go toward the costs of several elements of the Project: (1) completing our updated Feasibility Study, including engineering of the Project’s new process flow sheet; (2) costs associated with the EXIM bank’s loan due diligence process, (3) costs associated with due diligence processes with large equity investments needed to complete the Project’s up-front CAPEX requirements; (4) possible purchase of additional land in Nebraska; and (5) continuing to advance the Project to a construction start, such as conducting additional drilling, preparing for utility installation, or other site prep work; (6) repaying the debt we recently took on; and (7) other Project-related expenses.
2) Yorkville has been a bridge financer but is constantly selling shares which results in a constant drop of the shareprice.Is it not possible to find financers for the longer time who invest in Niocorp to enable Niocorp to build the mine.
Yes, and we are in continuing discusions / negotiations with a number of globally recognized investment firms interested in the Project.
As an aside, it is worth noting that, on many days when the share price ends in the red, Yorkville has not been active in the market on that day. Sellers come in all shapes and sizes, have a myriad of reasons why and when they sell, and rarely disclose those transactions.
3) What is the status of Niocorp investigation in using the railconveyor concept for Niocorp and what possible effect could it have on the building of the mine and the economics of the project.
The investigation is well underway. An independent analysis has been completed. In addition:
1. Staff has toured an operating railveyor system at a working mine, which has been operating successfully for over 5 years, and is similar in length and larger in tonnage than the one needed at Elk Creek. The environment at that particular location is challenging, as the terrain is not level or straight, conditions are wet and the water present in the workings is corrosive.
2. The railveyor system is robust in its construction, easy to maintain by people with basic mining skills, and does not require tight tolerances or precise techniques in its installation. In contrast, a vertical shaft has to be just about perfectly straight and completely vertical, and the equipment that goes in the shaft and the hoist house is highly specialized, expensive to purchase and maintain and requires a high degree of precision in its installation.
3. The next logical step for railveyor would involve bringing in experts to evaluate the geotechnical aspects of the ramps needed to support a railveyor-based mine along with a hydrogeologic evaluation to ensure that any water coming into the railveyor ramps can be dealt with. In concert with that, we’d advance the engineering design to FS level and get a firm quote from the manufacturer.
Walter
Q: In the December 4, 2023 PR you predicted deals in the short term. We are now 4 months into 2024. Was the PR bad communication or a mistake?
A:It was not a mistake. Deals are progressing. In hindsight we might have better communicated that the process to get the technology accepted and ubiquitous with Tier 1’s, could take more time.
it is in the management discussion of the quarterly financials
I do not seem to be able to copy and paste but it is accessible to everybody
AO just put some of these guys on ignore and write what you think is right.
In the quarterly reporting filed yesterday I read that on April 15 2024 Niocorp received a Preliminary Project letter ( the PPL) from Exim and that letter includes a preliminary indicative Term Sheet.
Looks like VERY SERIOUS progress to me;
Are you afraid of any competitive threats?
The datacenter market is expected to grow and it is huge and therefore attracts competitive interest. As witnessed at the last two big conferences, their performance enhancements are negatively impacting their reliability and/or power consumption. The incumbent technologies can’t keep up. We have world class performance now and future opportunities for further improvements. That's what customers really like. The two new technologies Barium Titanate and Thin Film Lithium Niobate are more difficult to be used in silicon photonics foundries and TFLN devices are 10-100X bigger than ours.
he said that in previous recorded presentantions too
correct
It was stated several times that there is more than one company that wants all of our titanium
so there is some competition and the company that wins will have to make also a strategic investment
PRESENTATION OBSERVATIONS
1. Brand New platform for Internet. Disrupt and Displace semiconductor industry
2. Radical Innovation
3. Macro Trends in favor of less space, faster, more bandwidth, low power
4. Bandwidth is the Achilles heel of the Data center industry
5. Need for 100x per two years coming from Moore’s law 2X every two years
6. AI is huge and a new driver, industry ready to look for solutions outside the semiconductor industry.
7. We are changing the engine in the box
8. Markets for Lightwave (see highlighted extensions on the slide 12 investor presentation) now Fiber Comms, HPC/Compute/AI, DCI/Data Center, 5 G systems
9. Chemistry Lab in Denver can scale
10. All our competitors have a problem in combination with Silicon and CMOS fabrication
11. 200 mm wafers shown, Lebby: thousands of modulators per wafer, ready to scale. Normal silicon photonics foundry. No name given. Commercial grade silicon wafers
12. World class performance of 1 V, 200 Gbps or 100 Gbaud PAM4 is today's industry requirement, tomorrow they want polymers to work at 400G and we know we can go to 800 G. Perk 6 is really great performance
13. Disruption requires careful management. We found the right commercial balance.
14. We have been in serious discussions since last year. Decided to go for 1,2,3 license deals with multinational Tier 1’s.
15. OLED has two big dominating companies: Samsung and LG. We need to pick our customers carefully to optimize volume.
16. OFC slide brand new: showed world class results to the industry HPC, Telecom, Systems Co’s, OSAT/CM’s Silicon Foundry engineers. Interest is growing fast. Also to research analysts who are following us for some time. Defense Industry and Universities.
17. The Progress we made since 2023 is incredible according to Michael.
18. Atikem and Laila Partridge are very helpful in customer relations. With Laila I have been doing deals since Intel.
Does anybody really think when Exim closes we will be sitting at this sucking shareprices?
I do not think so.
just a short reply as I believe this cesspool board is not the right forum to have a high level discussion.
Yorkville was a neccessary evil as a result of the failure of the Spac; If the Spac would have been a success we would have had the groundbreaking ceremony behind us. Management incorrectly assumed the Spac would bring in enough money. It did not . is that their mistake ? yes and No...
Fortunately we had Yorkville to continue or it would have been over and out. Now we are still alive and are in talks with EXIM for potential interesting financing terms.
That is why I am writing that Yorkville was a neccesary evil after Management wrongly assumed the Spac would be succesful. It is bridging the gap unfortunately with the result that the shareprice sucks but that will be temporarily.
AO
There is a big disconnect between the real value of this project and the shareprice as a result of the Spac failure .This discrepancy will disappear once Yorkville disappears.
Yorkville was a necessary evil . You do not want a bankrupt company and Yorkville has no interest in bankrupting the company. Their business goal is to make money , not to construct a mine nor to bankrupt Niocorp. however ,we need investors with a longer time horizon who want this mine built. , Not traders no hedge funds. .
We went through a difficult period where such investors were not easy to find.
But that will change is my firm belief. If we can bridge the timing until Exim with some longtermers we will be Golden .
In the meantime the intrinsic value of the company is only increasing. If I had more cash I would accumulate right now but I have enough shares and I am also not selling. As I said before I will only sell some at 30usd plus to cover my costs as I do or did with some of my other start ups. ( 15 in total)
Most of the money I made was by not quitting when I believed in it.
One of our IHUB friends is making calculations from the slides which were shown a few days ago. I am curious how they look like. It will prove the big disconnect with the shareprice. .
I have ALL the toxic posters on ignore in the mean time. .. Life is beautiful. Thank you for your daily support.
their ore grade is about 10 percent of ours.
Quote ( Antwerp and Ghent)
You do not have to work with everybody. Just pick the one , two or three big ones and then just get going.
Question : You say to deal with Tier 1’s and experience a long decision process and you tell us they want it faster. Is that not a contradiction? Are you seeing any bottlenecks?
Answer: No major bottlenecks. Engineers are first to assess our technology, they ‘kick the tires’ and want to see that it works. But installing a new internet platform is also a strategic company decision and the top of these multinational companies get involved. A top down process as well. I personally know all these multi- national company CEOs, so no issues there. I have recently been in OFC panel discussions with some of them and I also know them personally. The decision process is under way and with some already started last year. It's a top down and bottom up process.
In Antwerp Last week
question Do the customers request exclusivity?
Answer Yes, exclusivity requests are coming in. We are trying to find a balanced and appropriate commercial approach to deal with that interest. We will not give an outright exclusivity because that runs counter to our goal of ubiquity.
Based on my calculations
while the previous FS showed a revenue in percentage of Scandium 62 Niobium 33 and Titanium 5
it looks more likely that the revenue will be more balanced and show the following : Scandium 30 Niobium 30 Rare earths 24 and Titanium 16
to be confirmed of course by the experts that do the next FS
because you are a marketing man. why do you not organize one.
you are from the area.
The Antwerp and Ghent event. ( 450 participants in total) were on invitation.
In Antwerp and Ghent last week
We have the luxury to pick and choose our customers. Some
don't want competitors and want it faster. We don't have to work to pull customers in. We are
dragged along
The Antwerp presentation cost was 1225 euros.
I could show you the invoice. Peanuts to reach so many shareholders
This appears also something which we will do with a partner.
The Exim loan has to pass through 3 stages of which stage 1 is the most important; We have passed the 1st stage; Not one company that has passed stage 1 has been refused;.
This is indeed not the fastest process but when succesful it gives the best conditions.
I do not think so
I did not ask him this time but in a conversation of a few years ago Michael said they were not granting exclusivity.
By the way. fyi
I had lunch with M Lebby at my previous office at PWC together with a top wealth investor ( 5 stars) and suggested once they were a mature company they should change to PWC.
you must be an incredible investor staying in an investment for many years and not believing it will be a success.
who is weird here?
very impressed
Jeunke can you tell more. He talked with Atikem individually.
just for your info as I understand that in your professional life you were only dealing with grocery shops.( nothing wrong with grocery shops as my parents owned one )
Larger companies have several layers of decision levels. Once you convinced the technical experts this is going through these different levels plus the legal department.
They obviously asked for more data as explained in a later PR and are going through that data.
It will take the time that it needs to close the deals. We are not selling soap but a technology which will be there for the next decades.
If I do not believe the CEO i do not invest.
reply from Michael on my question; Why is it taking so long for the next deal?
reply : What do you prefer?
1) 10 deals with small partners?
or
2) a deal with a big partner who will make us ubiquitous?
I said the latter .
AND HE SMILED:
150 witnesses
because we organized a presentation event in total for 300 positive shareholders at a cost of 1225 euros for Niocorp.
If Demolition man can do the same Mark will gladly come .
Hi
people do not rush out of the room to buy shares; All these 300 people that attended the meetings on Friday and Saturday have a lot of shares already and are happy that they invested in the right stock. and make sure they keep their shares as they expect BIG wins .
I am one of these idiots that is never paid by the companies that he is invested in but expects BIG wins on Niocorp and can wait for that to happen , does enormous amount of dd and is not reading the crap on this message board anymore every day; ( with crap I am referring to the bashers, naysayers and people who sold but find it pleasant to annoy the positive posters; I have most of them on ignore and that sleeps better) I will be in Denver in May for the ASM of my other big investment and will hopefully meet management of Niocorp that is about 2 km away from my other meeting.
Tried to put the PDF file on the board but have no idea how to do it.So send it to Richard in the hope he knows how to do it.
Not really interested to go in discussion with anybody .
thank you for the nice post.
The CEO of Nanalysis gave a very promising presentation in Antwerp and Ghent. FOCUS will now be on profitability instead of acquisitions. No acquisitions nor dilutive PP anymore below Cad 3. looking forward for next conference call.
I am on my way to the next presentation in Ghent.
and tomorrow i have my wife's 80 birthday party.So very limited time.
probably Monday after my golf I may have some time.
More excited than ever before.
excellent presentation yesterday night in Antwerp.
today in Ghent
stay tuned
good one
I am sure they will be happy Advocate lol
This is going to be bigger than anybody here expected
but we all wanted to see it a lot sooner.